Aaron Price's bloghttp://www.aavso.org/blog/351
enSo Long, and Thanks for All the Fishhttp://www.aavso.org/so-long-and-thanks-all-fish-0
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I was hired by the AAVSO in May, 1998 as their &quot;IT person&quot;. At the time, HQ was running an exclusively Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 environment. Spider webs of copper co-ax cable still hung from the ceilings as they had just switched to ethernet a few months prior. There was a single CD-ROM in the entire building, which required reservations to use. All data programs ran on MS-DOS and the sole file server was Windows NT. The AID was kept as column-deliminated ASCII text files.<p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/so-long-and-thanks-all-fish-0" target="_blank">read more</a></p>staff blogWed, 27 Jun 2012 15:49:17 +0000Aaron Price3647 at http://www.aavso.orgSir Patrick Moore, AAVSO Member & Observerhttp://www.aavso.org/sir-patrick-moore-aavso-member-observer-0
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A serendipitous discovery of perhaps the most famous member in AAVSO history...</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/sir-patrick-moore-aavso-member-observer-0" target="_blank">read more</a></p>staff blogMon, 23 Apr 2012 20:59:21 +0000Aaron Price3262 at http://www.aavso.orgDateline: Guam, 1941http://www.aavso.org/dateline-guam-1941
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A special membership application is uncovered in the AAVSO archives. (Updated at bottom)</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/dateline-guam-1941" target="_blank">read more</a></p>historystaff blogTue, 14 Feb 2012 19:18:15 +0000Aaron Price3031 at http://www.aavso.orgOther Centennialshttp://www.aavso.org/other-centennials
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The AAVSO is not the only citizen science organization that celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. The American Meteor Society (AMS) also celebrated it&#39;s centennial. But the connection with the AAVSO goes beyond that.</p><p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/other-centennials" target="_blank">read more</a></p>staff blogFri, 20 Jan 2012 20:50:52 +0000Aaron Price2985 at http://www.aavso.orgThe Association of Science and Technology Centershttp://www.aavso.org/association-science-and-technology-centers
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I spent October 13-19 in Baltimore at the<a href="http://conference.astc.org/"> annual conference of the Association of Science and Technology Centers</a> (ASTC). A few years ago a colleague suggested that I attend this conference and present a talk on our <a href="http://www.citizensky.org/forum/cs-video-and-planetarium-show-wtimothy-ferris">Citizen Sky planetarium show</a>. That never happened due to timing and cost issues. But this year we had both the time and funding to attend.</p><p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/association-science-and-technology-centers" target="_blank">read more</a></p>staff blogTue, 08 Nov 2011 15:17:41 +0000Aaron Price2871 at http://www.aavso.orgSN 2011fe from Saskatchewanhttp://www.aavso.org/sn-2011fe-saskatchewan
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As part of our centennial celebration star party talks I was able to attend the <a href="http://homepage.usask.ca/~ges125/rasc/starparty.html">Saskatchewan Summer Star Party</a> at the Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. SN 2011fe was discovered during the star party and made for some exciting evenings.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/sn-2011fe-saskatchewan" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.aavso.org/sn-2011fe-saskatchewan#commentsSN 2011festaff blogstar partiesWed, 07 Sep 2011 14:48:29 +0000Aaron Price2800 at http://www.aavso.orgBanner Raisinghttp://www.aavso.org/banner-raising
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Last June, Arne, Michael Saladyga and myself hung the following banner on the front of AAVSO <a href="/aavso-headquarters">HQ</a>:</p>
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<img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/IMG_1628.JPG" style="width: 461px; height: 313px;" /></p><p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/banner-raising" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.aavso.org/banner-raising#commentscentennialHQstaff blogFri, 12 Aug 2011 17:23:48 +0000Aaron Price2738 at http://www.aavso.orgA Plan for Securing Observations of the Variable Starshttp://www.aavso.org/plan-securing-observations-variable-stars-0
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I&#39;ve spent some time recently preparing a presentation about the AAVSO Centennial for a number of amateur meetings. This angle on the centennial covers how changes in professional astronomy over the last 100 years have been reflected in the amateur community - using the history of VSO in the AAVSO as the narrative.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/plan-securing-observations-variable-stars-0" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.aavso.org/plan-securing-observations-variable-stars-0#commentshistoryMon, 16 May 2011 20:18:44 +0000Aaron Price2542 at http://www.aavso.orgBack It Uphttp://www.aavso.org/back-it-0
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<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Tropical_Storm_Allison_in_Texas#Aftermath">This story</a> keeps me up at night. The Baylor University College of Medicine lost 25 years of research data to Hurricane Allison.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/back-it-0" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.aavso.org/back-it-0#commentsAIDitstaff blogMon, 25 Apr 2011 17:54:05 +0000Aaron Price2510 at http://www.aavso.orgA Very Bad Mistakehttp://www.aavso.org/very-bad-mistake
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In 1998 I was hired as the AAVSO&#39;s &quot;IT person&quot;. At the time the AAVSO had a 56K frame relay connection to the Internet (your current smartphone probably has faster access) and as much copper coax cable as ethernet. We were a MSDOS/Windows95/Windows NT network with one CDROM in the entire building that staff had to share. I was a former webmaster with extensive Windows NT experience and almost no UNIX experience. The AAVSO had a Linux box that ran the web, FTP, DNS and e-mail servers. Managing it was contracted out. I was 23-years old with a grand total of 2 years of sysadmin experience under my belt.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aavso.org/very-bad-mistake" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.aavso.org/very-bad-mistake#commentsstaff blogWed, 30 Mar 2011 16:16:14 +0000Aaron Price2446 at http://www.aavso.org